Vaccines: Why are informed consent laws being ignored?

Consent Laws

By Norma Erickson

Vaccines – Informed Consent

Consent Laws: Throughout the 20th century, countless medical consumers have battled to obtain the right to informed consent. Although the U.S. Constitution does not specifically address the issue, multiple court cases have upheld the premise that the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy insures that people are protected from governmental interference when deciding private matters, such as when they make decisions about accepting or refusing medical care.1 Every medical consumer now has the legal right to participate in their health care decisions via the doctrine of informed consent. It is our responsibility to preserve this right for future generations.

What is informed consent?

According to the National Institutes of Health2 your doctor must disclose and discuss the following in order to comply with informed consent laws:

Your health problem and the reason for the treatment

What happens during the treatment

The risks of the treatment and how likely they are to occur

How likely the treatment is to work

Other options for treating your health problem

Unknown risks or possible side effects that may happen later

If treatment is needed now or can wait

Ask yourself, when was the last time a vaccine-provider discussed the potential side-effects of a vaccine or alternative options with you prior to the administration of the vaccine? If you have allergies, did they discuss the possibility of an allergic reaction to any components of the vaccine being administered? Did they discuss efficacy of the vaccine?

According to the National Institutes of Health web site, 4 not only is your doctor required to discuss the seven topics above; they are required to obtain written consent for the following:

Most surgeries, even when they are not done in the hospital

Other advanced or complex medical tests and procedures.

Radiation or chemotherapy to treat cancer

Most vaccines

Some blood tests, such as HIV testing (need for written consent varies by state)

Only after all pertinent facts have been discussed to the point where you understand them, are you able to exercise your right to informed consent. In order to do so, you must be mentally competent to make an informed decision and have attained the legal age of consent. Only then are the laws of informed consent satisfied.

How did citizens obtain the right to informed consent?

Many people assume informed consent was achieved after the Nuremberg trials as a direct response to the atrocities committed in the name of research. Actually, the battle was being waged much earlier.

In a 1905 opinion on the Parmelia Davis2 (uterus and ovaries were removed without her permission) case, the Supreme Court declared that Americans’ rights as free citizens prohibited:

“a physician or surgeon, however skillful or eminent…to violate without permission the bodily integrity of his patient…and [to operate] on him without his consent or knowledge.”

In a 1914 Supreme Court decision involving a patient who had consented to only a portion of the surgery which was actually performed, (Mary Schloendorff) Justice Benjamin Cardozo3 added,

“Every human being of adult years and sound mind has the right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient’s consent commits an assault, for which he is liable in damages, except in cases of emergency where the patient is unconscious, and where it is necessary to operate before consent can be obtained”

In spite of these rulings, it was not until 1957 that patients acquired the right to be told not only what the doctor was going to do, but also that action’s possible positive and negative effects. In 1957, the California Court of Appeals3 ruled for plaintiff Martin Salgo (left paralyzed following a hospital diagnostic procedure) writing:

“A physician violates his duty to his patient and subjects himself to liability if he withholds any facts which are necessary to form the basis of an intelligent consent by the patient to the proposed treatment.”

How does this apply to vaccines?

Vaccines are a medical intervention. As with any medical procedure, there are risks involved to certain individuals. Under the informed consent doctrine, you have a right to know these risks and alternative treatments prior to granting your consent. Remember, informed consent is the law – not simply an option.

According to the NIH, you have the right to refuse any medical procedure if you are able to understand your health condition, your treatment options, and the risks and benefits of each option. Your doctor or other health care provider may tell you they do not think this is the best choice for you. But, your health care providers should not try to force you to have a treatment you do not want to have.

However, all 50 states mandate (require) vaccinations for daycare, pre-school, school attendance and/or as a condition of employment. All 50 states also allow exemptions from vaccination for one or more of the following: medical, religious, or philosophical reasons. The rules for obtaining these exemptions vary widely from state to state. Whether you realize it or not – this is an intrusion on your right to informed consent.

Many states, like Oregon, are trying to further erode the concept of informed consent by making it more difficult for parents to exercise their rights under the guise of vaccine education. Will this ‘education’ include all of the information you need to make an informed choice?

According to the basic principles of informed consent, the only time government entities should be allowed to interfere with your right to exercise informed consent is during a bona fide public health emergency, a life threatening medical emergency, the patient’s incompetence, or if you waive your rights.

How can medical consumers retain their right to informed consent?

It has taken decades of painful litigation to force the medical community to allow people a voice in their own healthcare decisions. Almost as soon as that right was assured, lobbying began to try return to the ‘more comfortable’ status quo. Should your right to informed consent be legislated away regarding vaccines and vaccination policies, you can rest assured your rights to informed consent regarding other medical procedures and practices will follow.

What can you do to protect your rights? Political activist, author and healthcare rights advocate, Catherine J. Frompovich puts forth the following suggestions:

Introduce language to amend any current laws/regulations restricting informed choice that exist in any state.

Make sure any pending legislation includes language preserving the right to informed consent.

In the interest of public health and safety, introduce a Vaccine/Vaccination Education/Information Bill in all 50 states, requiring the following:

(1) Any medical consumer over the age of consent must receive Vaccine/Vaccination Information containing the following data:

(a) A complete list of ingredients in each vaccine, including excipients, adjuvants and antigens; and

(b) A complete list of potential adverse reactions as listed on vaccine package inserts for each vaccine proposed for administration; and

(2) Require all cases adjudicated within the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program be made available for public review under John/Jane Doe status

The right to fully informed consent did not simply materialize out of thin air. The battle to guarantee this right was long and painful. The right to informed consent was gained at the expense of many people’s health and/or lives.

Rights come with responsibilities. It is our responsibility to make sure the sacrifices of others were not made in vain. It is our responsibility to preserve the right to fully informed consent for future generations. The alternative is unthinkable.

Excellent and extremely important article which deserves to be widely spread.

Vaccines are not tested for carcinogenicity, mutagenicity or genotoxicity, nor are long term safety studies carried out, nor are safety studies carried out for the combination of vaccines which are administered.
The complete list of ingredients is unknown even to doctors due to trade secrets.
Nor does the complete list of ingredients always appear to be known by manufacturers. There have been new substances discovered long after vaccines have been on the market, examples of which are the potentially carcinogenic SV40 which has been administered to millions in polio vaccines, pig DNA in rota vaccines and recombinant aluminium bound HPV DNA in Gardasil which may have horrific consequences.

Vaccination should be a matter of free and informed choice. However, considering the many unknown yet extremely important factors, informed choice is in fact an impossibility.

Thursday at 1PM Eastern Time, Attorney-at-Law, Alan Phillips will be on BlogTalkRadio to discuss all pertinent vaccine legal issues on Homeopathy World Community Radio and FreedomizerRadio. He has spent decades investigating the constitutionality and state laws dealing with Health Freedom and associated rights. The issue of ‘proprietary’ information has become a tactic in which to hide information from public view and legal scrutiny. Our Congressional members have become so immune from the cries of the people in their states, it appears they dismiss their concerns and questions often without even hearing them out and investigating the full information. Perhaps they have hardened their hearts? And, that is not even talking about many ways we all become guinea pigs to the state with manipulated foods that have not been labeled, and marketing products to children and special populations.

Perhaps SaneVax readers would like to know that my new book, Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, which discusses many of the neurotoxins and toxic chemicals in vaccines, plus vaccination politics, will be on Amazon.com in August 2013. Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, MD, JD, MPH, wrote the Foreword, and Paul G. King, PhD, wrote the Introduction about how ‘safe’ vaccines are, plus more. When Dr. King sent me his Introduction, my remark was, “Total genius!” Dr. Eisenstein says at the end of the Foreword, “…you hit it out of the park!”
SaneVax contributed to the production of the book by allowing a verbatim reprint of one of its impressive and poignant articles. The Resources section of Vaccination Voodoo is most impressive, I think. Dr. King complimented me with his saying that he read the manuscript twice because he found more in it than he thought he would.
Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, is different than most books about the subject. Nineteen chapters discuss among other things, Vaccine Excipients & Media; Chemical Cocktails in Syringes; Toxic Heavy Metals in Vaccines, Are Children Machinery Who Need Toxic Metals to be Healthy?; Is There A Hidden Infertility Factor in Vaccines?; The Non-Disclosed and Hyper-Allergenic Vaccine Adjuvant; The Precautionary Principle: Throwing Caution to the Winds; Are Vaccines Medical Science, Global Politics, or Voodoo?; and many more chapters, which I hope can shine a spotlight on seriously real vaccine issues to start an intelligent dialogue about what’s really going on with vaccines.
I hope you will enjoy reading and sharing the information in Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines.

Babies cannot give informed consent to medical treatment; therefore, should not such treatment be limited to treatment essential to save their lives, or approaching that standard? The hepatitis B vaccine being given to newborns on their first day of life surely does not meet that test. Neither doctor nor parents have even had a chance to get to know that baby yet, to assess its particular risks. Vaccines cause pain, and we don’t really know how pain from vaccines might be affecting children’s central nervous systems. It is a serious concern. Only an adult is old enough to understand the risks and benefits of each vaccine, such as are known (and more are being discovered all the time, such as with vaccines causing auto-immune disorders). Circumcision of baby boys has been common, of course, but that, too, is without consent. I have read clinical trials of vaccines where consent was obtained from children to be experimented upon; that is appalling. No one is protecting them. Sometimes I wonder if the day won’t come when a person decides to sue his or her own parent or the government for violating his or her right to informed consent by vaccination. I agree with Norma Erickson that we must stand firm and uphold our rights to informed consent. This thinking might also be applied to an unborn child in a pregnant mother’s womb, who will be affected by any vaccinations she gets, with more substances crossing the blood-brain barrier than was first thought. We cannot allow the abortion argument to water down the rights of the developing child in utero to begin his or her life after birth with optimum health.

In Australia , there is no compensation for vaccine damage. From the above article, could we then sue the individual health provider , who gave the vaccination ( should the recipient become vaccine damaged ) if the fully informed consent was not obtained?